Stage Fifteen: Limoux to Foix Prat d'Albis - Aerodynamic

A gruelling mountain stage, with three category one climbs before the finish.

Sweezus hopes to achieve his dream of being King of the Mountain.

I'd lend you my socks, says Arthur. They were super aerodynamic.

But what? says Sweezus.

But Terence cut the tops off, says Arthur.

What did he want them for? asks Sweezus.

Don't know, says Arthur. But they're unravelling.

They glance at his socks.

Threads are lengthening visibly, and flapping.

I might have to stop for a minute, says Arthur.

Shit, says Sweezus, can't you just lean down and roll the tops under?

You mean like this? says Arthur, leaning down and fiddling with his socks.

He wobbles. No way can he do it.

He stops, next to a clown.

Greetings, says Marcel. Sock trouble? Do take mine.

Thanks Marcel, says Arthur, effecting a quick change at the road side.

The socks of Marcel Proust are, understandably, clown socks.

Striped and loose,. But Arthur's legs are sturdier than Proust's are. The socks fit quite well.

Come to our picnic tomorrow, shouts Arthur, over his shoulder, as he rides back to his captain, (who won't get to be King of the Mountain today).

Marcel Proust whips out a pen, and an expensive linen note pad.

It is not often, writes Marcel Proust, that I find myself, having spent many troubling hours gazing at myself in a long mirror dressed in the costume of a clown in order to come to an understanding of what it is that distinguishes myself as a clown from my daily self, a self anything but humorous, and having achieved by my concentrated efforts something of the comic sense which normally eludes me, much  to the chagrin of my mother, a woman given to reading the funny papers in secret when....

Marcel! Get to the point!

We shall come back later.

What else has been happening?

The teams have climbed the col de Montsegur, the Port de Lers, the Mur de Péguère and are now riding painfully up the Foix Prat d'Albis.

Alaphilippe tries valiantly not to lose seconds.

Tibaut Pinaut's legs go like a jackhammer.

So do Mikel Landa's.

Simon Yates doesn't even look tired.

Mouldy is nowhere to be seen.

His sock tops have tangled in the spokes of his bicycle, and he has slowed to a trickle.

He is passed by nearly everyone.

Terence waits at the finish with Belle and Grace Swan.

Here comes Simon Yates. First! Well done Simon!

Here comes Thibaut Pinot, back in contention.

Mikel Landa is third.

We'll be waiting a long time for Mouldy.

Let's go back and see if Marcel has completed his sentence.

Look over his shoulder. Mind his bright yellow wig.

......when she is alone in her chamber, I find myself in the position of acting as a possible helpmate the execution of which involves the suspension of clownness for a few moments while I remove my socks hurriedly and receive a tattered pair in exchange from a rider who before my eyes metamorphoses into Arthur Rimbaud, a friend I had thought unlikely to....

Yes, he still hasn't finished, but the gist seems to be, that he didn't mind swapping socks with Arthur, and probably, if we were to have the patience, we would eventually discover that he is pleased to have been invited to the picnic tomorrow.